Designs Most Fowl
In hindsight it was not altogether astonishing to those who remained behind at Pemberley that their disgraced servitor, Cyril Smeads, had taken surreptitious leave. Even he recognised the untenability of his actions. However, that upon his leave-taking he had hied not only to Kent, but to the estate of Rosings Park was compleatly unanticipated. They were quite unwitting of Cyril Smeads’s connection with Lady Catherine. In believing he would find refuge there, however, he exposed the depth of his betrayal of the Darcys and their privacy. His reason for making for Kent, nonetheless, fell to a sizable misapprehension. It was his understanding that his office of Lady Catherine’s spy would be rewarded. Because he had been exposed whilst under her covert auspices, he believed that she owed him a position within her household.
Yewdell, however, was not of a like mind. Had he not been privy to Smeads’s reputation of boundless arrogance and unrivalled disputatiousness, it was still doubtful that he would have looked upon such a notion with a kind eye. Although she monitored every expenditure, in matters of servants, Lady Catherine gave ear to Yewdell’s opinion.
His advice was succinct, “Pray, if I may suggest, your ladyship, that we pay heed to the single truth we know of this Smeads—his loyalty is easily bought.”
Lady Catherine did not reply. Recuperation from childbirth required of Georgiana a lengthy sojourn at Rosings Park—Lady Catherine her most attentive aunt. Even had Smeads been compleatly trustworthy, with the Darcy kin visiting she dared not chance him being seen. Her answer to his entreaty thereupon was one of omission. She refused to see Smeads at all.
It was during Georgiana’s stay that another drama unfolded—this not so furtive. That Sir Winton Beecher was at the centre of one was no great astonishment. It was a tad unexpected that the consort in this affair was a long-standing (if not altogether inventive) husband-hunter, Miss Caroline Bingley.
Moreover, this alliance all but came about through the agency of a detestable fowl.
***
Once the hordes of consolers, comforters, and those who inevitably came only to gawk left the family to mourn on their own, the air of reflection and familial solidarity dissipated with great rapidity. Had Lady Catherine’s proposal to Elizabeth gone better, perhaps her ladyship would have been in better humour. As it did not, she was not. In her sullenness, she occasionally cast a disputatious look at her son-in-law. He, in turn, refused to rise to the bait. To Beecher’s way of thinking, he did his part and felt he should be duly compensated. If that Mrs. Darcy would not fall for her ladyship’s schemes, that was very unfortunate, but no skin off his aristocratic nose.
Not surprisingly, Lady Catherine saw it quite differently. She felt herself assaulted upon all sides by incompetent and avaricious agents—first Smeads, then Beecher. The monetary arrangement to which she had agreed for Beecher to join forces with her to induce the Darcys to commit to a future union betwixt their families was based purely upon results. As their combined efforts were not met with success, she believed their arrangement null and void. Words and looks were exchanged with enough regularity to keep the animosity at a peak.
Eventually, Beecher was content to sulk in silence. Lady Catherine’s temper, however, was not so easily quieted. Although their joint venture of persuasion had been thoroughly quashed, Lady Catherine did not give it up with any part of good grace. Rather than understand her proposition was ill-advised, she blamed their lack of success wholly upon Beecher. (In lieu of an introspection that might suggest her unhappy with him for higher crimes.) Her esteem of her daughter’s twit of a husband had never gone beyond gratitude for the motility of his seed. She had thought, however, that the effortlessness with which he had charmed her daughter would translate into similar success with others of her sex. She then saw an error in her judgement—not a feeling that she enjoyed. It brought to her recollections of past miscalculations of a humiliating nature. If she was once again to be foiled by her nephew’s wife, she preferred to have a scapegoat upon which to heap the blame.
“It was, after all, my opinion early on that Anne’s passing alone would not soften that lady’s heart. Anne was nothing to her,” Beecher said inadvisably. “Moreover, it has been my experience that one must not reveal one’s hand prematurely.”
Reminding her of his gaming ways and saying “I told you so” in the same breath did not endear Beecher to her ladyship. Indeed, she was most displeased. The only part of her scheme that went right was having obtained Darcy’s qualified agreement. Because of that small triumph, Lady Catherine chose to leave it alone for then and pursue it upon another occasion. In the meantime, she had sweet Georgiana and her lovely nephew, Fitzwilliam, to keep her thoughts occupied. Although her design for her own daughter’s future with Darcy had been thwarted, Georgiana’s was still a match by which she was most pleased. In truth, Fitzwilliam’s conviviality endeared him to her in a way that Darcy’s reticent nature never could. But then, marriage had nothing to do with companionability and everything to do with condition.
She had been surprised by Georgiana’s marriage to Fitzwilliam, but only a little disappointed. A titled husband would have suited a lady of her station better, but a husband from their own family ranks was still suitable. It was yet possible that Fitzwilliam would earn a title for his heroics—if he would only accept. That was one of his few failings—he eschewed acclaim. Nonetheless, she saw it as providential that Georgiana was taken to the straw within her walls. Lady Catherine was well aware of the affection Darcy held for his sister. Georgiana giving birth within the august halls of Rosings Park and naming her daughter Anne was another link in her chain of renewed family unity. She intended to keep the dear girl with her as long as possible. In doing so, she was not above invoking her dead daughter’s memory and a mother’s broken heart. Lady Catherine had been almost stunned at how well that ploy had worked on Darcy. At one time she had believed him to be a man unmoved by such pathos. She supposed that a decline in what had been his finely honed sense of perspicaciousness was inevitable. It was an observation not unfamiliar to her. Once a man fell under the throes of womanly wiles, all good sense went missing.
Although Lady Catherine despised womanly wiles when she perceived them to have been employed by another, she was not so resistant to such ploys as to scruple to use them herself. Regrettably, she was compleatly unaware that she had never quite mastered the art. Hence, when attempting to engage in such tomfoolery, the effect was betimes lacking. (The expression upon Darcy’s countenance when she had endeavoured to weep was one less of compassion than appalled incredulity.) She had bruised her dignity in resorting to such a device, but was disinclined to argue with success—Darcy had capitulated. Two can play that game, Miss Bennet!
As she mused over that marginally successful ruse, Lady Catherine looked again upon Beecher. Summoning the thought of her illustrious nephew, the comparison did not do Beecher’s aspect any kindness. As he sat slumped in his chair nursing his wineglass, powdered and curled to perfection, she had to repress the desire to whap him atop his head with her fan.
As if divining her thoughts, Beecher set down his drink and looked upon her.
“What?” he said impatiently. “What?”
“You, sir, ask questions no better than you answer them.”
At that nonsensical response, Beecher stood and walked the length of the room. There, he reached out and imperceptively corrected the hang of the frame for one of his water-colours. Upon his return, he passed by Henry’s perch, and as if doing a bit of divining of his mistress’s thoughts himself, Henry let out a screech and took flight in Beecher’s direction. The tether kept Henry from doing any damage beyond a loss of dignity—at the feather-flapping squawk, Beecher leapt two foot into the air and did not regain his composure gracefully.
“That bloody bird!” Beecher squawked (doing a passable, if unintentional, imitation of Henry). “He does that again and I’ll have him for supper!”
With all her considerable hauteur, Lady Catherine rose to her feet.
“You, sir,” she announced, “have said quite enough! Begone from my sight!”
It had not been Beecher’s design, but being banished from her ladyship’s presence was no great punishment. Indeed, he thought it not altogether unseemly to betake himself from her presence and all the way to London—an atmosphere far more to his liking. There, people of condition were happy for his company.
Unbeknownst to him, however, perched upon the footboard of his coach as he hied for London was the lately unemployed Pemberley servitor, Cyril Smeads.
***
It had long been Caroline Bingley’s habit to troll the matrimonial waters employing the time-tested method of winnowing out eligible husbands by perusing the newspaper’s weekly obituary column. Had she not been apprised beforehand that the death of Darcy’s young cousin left a grieving widower, she would have honed in on him regardless. Other than his relative youth, she was attracted to Lord Beecher for the same virtues as had been Lady Catherine—he was titled and kept a carriage. Of the more questionable of his attributes, she remained blissfully unaware. Had she been witting, they would not have served her purposes as they had Lady Catherine’s. Gambling was a vice that would have troubled her, but a mistress simply meant that was one obligation she would not have to fulfill. (Fertility not only served no purpose for her, it was undesirable.) Caroline wanted only the title (and the yellow livery was quite nice). Indeed, his turn for foppish wardrobe and London society was all she desired in a husband.
When espying Beecher sporting a black band and salving his poor wounded bosom in the card rooms at Almack’s (Boodle’s still held markers for him that Lady Catherine had not yet settled), Caroline made a beeline for him, the recuperation of his heart much upon her mind. Long past her bloom, had Miss Bingley not employed the name of Darcy as one of her connections, Beecher would not have been half so ready to have her be his chief consoler. Quite expeditiously (and with the help of copious amounts of wine), Miss Bingley’s hand was stroking his waistcoat and his arm snaked about her waist. Although it was certainly observed, no one within their milieu actually raised an eyebrow at their familiarity. Although mourning demanded any new alliance be kept in confidence for a full year, society overlooked a husband’s lack of dedication to a spouse’s memory with far greater tolerance than a wife’s.
All might have gone without mishap had Beecher’s vice of gambling not been so intimately intertwined with that of drink. But as a man who clearly did not own the intuitive mind required to be successful in games of chance, luck absolutely fled from his side as well when he was in his cups. Caroline remained constant to him during his trial, for she had been so dedicated to her search for a match that when at last one was at hand, she was not inclined to allow him to slip through her fingers. Indeed, she allowed herself to be escorted to the tables each night, but did not play herself. She draped herself across the back of his chair, but she could do nothing to avert the catastrophe she saw unfold as hand after hand went greatly to the bad.
Although it was a precipitous decline, one particular hand incurred a deficit so substantial that Beecher could not leave the table without writing out an acknowledgement of debt promising several of his prize racing ponies as collateral.
The key to the misunderstanding that came about was whether the horses in question actually resolved the debt or were held in abeyance until Beecher could cover his wager. Beecher had believed them security. Therefore, first he cajoled, and when rebuffed, Beecher begged his creditor to relent. As he held the horses in far greater esteem than he ever felt for a mere wife, the prospect of losing them sent him into a plaintive keen sufficiently pitiable to have unmanned Herod. However the gentleman was not Herod, but Alphonse Parr. He was not a man of sport, but of business. Parr had, without compunction, evicted widows and orphans from his properties. Beecher, however, was unknowing of Parr’s disposition and when the man insisted upon taking possession of the precious mounts, Beecher slapped him across the face with his glove. Unfortunately, he did this in a public hall and all about the room gasped, knowing well what that meant.
Even Miss Bingley exclaimed, “Dear God in heaven!”
At Beecher’s attack, Parr demanded, “Name your weapon, sir!”
From the wavering expression of effrontery upon Beecher’s countenance, it appeared that he may have reconsidered the depth of his injury. As a gentleman, Beecher knew that if he did not appear to defend his honour, his societal death would precede his actual one. Parr’s nose curled just a bit, as if he had detected the odour of fear that was then emanating from the area of Beecher’s spine.
Gathering himself just a bit, Beecher boomed, “Pistols,” with a far greater degree of certainty than he felt.
His choice of gun rather than blade was precautionary—his shooting experience was limited to toting a long gun on his shoulder during the odd grouse hunt. (He had taken out a pistol once or twice, but had never actually shot anyone—he was, after all, a gentleman.) However, he had never wielded a blade of any kind. He thought no better of taking exercise with a foil than he did of those bloody grouse hunts to which he was occasionally coerced. With a gun, he had reasonably presumed that he had at least one chance to hit his opponent. Feint and parry were compleatly foreign to him.
There was the issue of a second. Beecher had not the happy manners that made for fast friendship of other gentlemen. If he had incurred this engagement in the county of Kent, Lady Catherine’s connections would have made it far easier to marshal someone to stand with him. As it was, Miss Bingley had been pressed into service of supplying him one. Caroline had the audacity to think her brother a candidate. She pleaded with Jane to speak to him, but surprisingly Jane refused, citing Bingley’s keeping to his room due to some business he had endured upon the wharves. (Caroline’s memory of her recent denunciation of her brother had conveniently failed her, but Jane’s would not be so forgiving.) Beyond those monetary, Caroline had little time for the particulars of her brother’s affairs and scurried for the more sympathetic ear of her sister Louisa. Mrs. Hurst was happy to dragoon Mr. Hurst to do the job—as being the keeper of the Flask of Courage was an employment that merged quite nicely with his own proclivities.
Mr. Hurst had served his office by plying Beecher with liquid mettle until the appointed hour. But, when Beecher arrived at the appropriately secluded spot, his trembling knees remained unsettled. The bravado he had enjoyed the night before had fled, leaving him with bleary eyes and a fierce headache. Moreover, it was such an outrageously early hour. Indeed, he regretted that he had attempted the few hours of sleep that he had.
“Get on with it, I say!” he demanded.
Parr nodded benignly, threw his cape over his shoulder, and took his position. Impatient and irritable, Beecher shot first and missed. Protocol then gave Parr the freedom to take his own shot. To his credit, Beecher stood his ground to receive his punishment like the gentleman he believed himself to be—temporarily. By the time Parr had taken aim, Beecher peeked through squinted eyes and was most affrighted by looking down the barrel of Parr’s pistol. In the following moment, Parr drew a bead upon the largest target exposed to him which, unfortunately, was the broad expanse of Beecher’s buttocks as he was making his away. In fortune, that area of the human form is the one most cushioned for such an assault, hence Beecher was taken down, but not killed.
The return trip to Rosings Park was, however, a bit uncomfortable. This, not only for Beecher who had to endure the trip to Kent lying on his stomach and swilling laudanum, but for Caroline’s lap, upon which he reposed. As he was merely incapacitated, not dead, Miss Bingley did not desert him. (Indeed, she was so dedicated, one would have thought she had burnt her bridges everywhere else.) As his closest relative, her son-in-law’s care was remanded ultimately unto Lady Catherine. In that Caroline advised her ladyship of the deep and abiding friendship she shared with Georgiana, she was asked to stay on for as long as she liked. Georgiana, of course, was quite astonished to see Caroline once again—almost as astonished as she was to learn that Miss Bingley still regarded their friendship as a dear one. Although Lady Catherine and Miss Bingley were of similar minds upon many things (not least amongst them as admiration of rank), Caroline’s design upon Beecher became apparent.
Lady Catherine was very attentive to those tenets governing societal behaviour. Unlike her peers in London, she did not turn a blind eye to a widower transgressing the conventions of mourning. Even in Beecher’s compromised health, she saw a romance in progress.
She was most displeased.